Taken Into Consideration
by incandescent 3 6 0
Summary: There's a reason she hit him first. RED/GREEN. *brick/buttercup*. (oh crap).


**Title -** Taken Into Consideration

**Summary -** There's a reason she hit him first. RED/GREEN. *brick/buttercup*. (oh crap).

**Pairing(s) -** Brickercup

**Rating -** T

**Status -** Oneshot; Complete

**Important Notes -** UM, SO, I CAN TOTALLY EXPLAIN. I KNOW THAT I HAVE, BEFOREHAND, EXPRESSED MY PASSIONED HATRED FOR MIXED PAIRING IN THE PGG UNIVERSE, BUT COME ON. BRICK AND BUTTERCUP. THEY KINDA WORK.

but i would like to save fear from anyone who thinks i will now be writing mixed pairings by saying that color coded pairing are still the nearest and dearest to my heart and forever will be.

(btw it is 3 a.m. and i am supposed to be waking up super fucking early and i just randomly got the inspiration for this ok)

**Disclaimer -** I do not own the Powerpuff Girls.

**XXX**

It went without saying that the years had treated the boys nicely.

Buttercup noticed. She noticed good and well. What with their entry to the public school system, it'd been hard for her _not_ to notice. She was sure her sisters were cognizant of this as well, though they, same as she, had never spoken up about it. There was no need to. A mass of teenage girls spoke all of their thoughts out loud as they fawned over the boys in a daily routine of swoons and squeals.

Buttercup scoffed. Girls like them fell for the simplest of traps. No man could ever heave _her_ in, however. Not ever.

And still, there was something around the air that the leader of the male trio left in his wake. Something that pulled her attention. It was probably the way his shoulders were so broad or his height was far too tall in the way that made her want to squeeze him back down to a normal child's size, so that she wouldn't have to be reminded that, yes, he is indeed a man. She couldn't stop herself from noticing.

And she couldn't stop that aching feeling at the low pit of her stomach that demanded she be noticed by _him_.

...

"Here," Buttercup said, handing Brick a slip of paper. His fingers just barely skimmed across hers and a mass of erratic thumps gave way in her chest. The feeling was like a drug that begged to be felt again.

Butch had been called up to the board to solve a basic algebra equation, and it left their three-seated table occupied by just the two for the remaining five minutes.

_6 + 4x = -10_

"Um," Butch mumbled, and he motioned to the negative ten, "That, uh, that's supposed to be multiplied, right?" The class groaned in unison.

Or ten minutes.

Her neon eyes were skimming over Brick's visage while his attention was elsewhere, when she happened to come across a scar that sat on the left side of his - quite nicely sculpted - jaw. "Did I do that?" she impulsively asked him. When he snapped his head up to look at her, eyebrow raised and all, she blushed too hard for her liking. She pointed at the scar, her hand lingering dangerously close to his face. "That." She pulled her hand back down to her side.

Butch tapped his chin, scrunching up his nose, deep in concentration. "So," he said, pointing at the number six, and the class leaned on the edge of their seats, "I cancel this out?" A partial applause and approval was emitted from the class.

Brick touched the scar and then nodded at her. "Surprised you'd remember."

She shrugged, averting her eyes. "I didn't remember giving you a _scar_."

He leaned back in his chair. "Gotta give you credit. You punch pretty damn hard."

She looked at Butch as he cancelled out the six, but accidentally put a negative five on the other side of the equation and was bombarded with shouts of "_NO_s" and "_holy fucking shit_s'' while he scrambled to erase it and put a negative six in its place. She frowned, and said, "I never left any marks on Butch."

"Well, aren't I special?"

She glared at him and the way he mocked her in that deep voice of his. "You're a twat, is what you are."

"Okay," Butch turned to face the class, "I don't know what the fuck to do next."

"_Language_," Blossom and the math instructor scolded simultaneously.

"I've _gotta_ be special. You know, since I was the first one you planted that punch on," Brick said, pretending to reminisce.

"I didn't punch you first for anything. I just punched you. Case closed."

"Like terms! LIKE FREAKIN' TERMS," Robin screamed from the back of the class.

"Ohhh," Butch turned back around and applied the negative ten to the negative six. When he put the number four, the class erupted into loud sighs and "_oh my God_s".

The math instructor took a long sip of his coffee and muttered, "This is gonna take a while."

Brick looked at her, intrigued. "How'd you see it?"

She paused. "What?"

"You had to have been looking at me for quite a while to see the scar." He sounded so cocky. It pissed her off.

"So what?" she snapped at him, "It's not like you do the same to me."

"Alright," Butch announced, "If four-ex equals negative sixteen..."

The class stood in an eery and suspenseful silence, waiting for him to continue.

"_If four-ex equals negative sixteen_," the math instructor pressed him on anxiously.

Brick smirked, eyeing her up and down. "I've taken you into consideration."

"Theeennnnn..." Butch slowly raised his marker up to pen in his next move. Bubbles gnawed down on her fingernails and Blossom nervously tapped her foot. All was quiet, painfully quiet, and time stopped as Butch's marker touched the whiteboard.

Brick picked his pencil up to finish off his last few problems on the sheet. Buttercup solely sat there, face redder than the hue of his eyes, heart pounding out of her chest. And the realization reveled in her. She supposed there _was _a reason she hit him first.

Butch's tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he sloppily wrote down the answer. Throughout the room, eyes were wide and unblinking, hands gripping the handles of the chairs, and all breathing ceased as he stepped aside to reveal what he'd solved.

_x = -4_

The class exploded into to uproarous cheers.

A few friends of his ran up and patted Butch on the back, lifting him up onto their shoulders and chanting "_MVP_" as they carried him out of the class.

Boomer stared as they left. "Um...Where are they going?" he asked.

Blossom quirked a brow at the noisy jocks, whose chant could still be faintly heard from in the hallway. "That's...That's not even relevant."

Yes, there _was_ a reason Buttercup hit Brick first.

Because he was the one that she noticed.

**END**

_holy crap, guys._

_it's almost six a.m. now_

_what the fuck am i doing with my life._

_but anyway, thanks for reading!_

_hugs and kisses ;*_


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